


Two Good Old Boys

by not_whelmed_yet



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Adventure, Comic Book Science, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Secret Solenoid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 04:11:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17257343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_whelmed_yet/pseuds/not_whelmed_yet
Summary: Ratchet is taking his first vacation in millenia and he's going to a—wait, he's going to a model ship hobbyist conference? That can't be right.Ratchet gets some bonding time with the ship's most popular (and only) therapist on a relaxing vacation that definitely won't turn into a bit of an adventure.





	Two Good Old Boys

**Author's Note:**

> My Secret Solenoid gift for Yviiryn! I did a combination of your first (day in the life of ratchet) and third (write a crewmember you enjoy writing) prompts; it seemed like you liked Rung so I thought maybe you'd enjoy him and Ratchet having an adventure together. Hope your holidays have been treating you well. 💕
> 
> In other news, I remain unable to write a short fic.
> 
> Title taken from the song sung by Elliot and Hardison in Leverage's "The First Contact Job". 
> 
> Because if there's anything Rung and Ratchet are it's:  
> \- good  
> \- old  
> \- boys

Ratchet checked the caller ID and considered not picking up. But there was always a chance it was something actually urgent...he sighed and pressed accept. “This better be good, Rodimus.”

“Where are you?” Rodimus asked. “I'm in the medibay and I need you to tell me if my—”

“I’m not on the ship, go ask First Aid,” Ratchet said.

“Not on the ship? What do you mean, "not on the ship"?”

“I cleared some vacation time with Ultra Magnus,” Ratchet said, stepping out of the elevator and onto the landing. He'd come down from the room looking for something, but now he was having a hard time remembering what. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to retrace his steps back to the room before he remembered—getting old sucked. “I'm here for a model ship and miniatures exhibition.”

“Since when do you have hobbies? Or take vacations?” Rodimus asked.

“I'm not here for me,” Ratchet said, turning back to the elevator and pressing the button to go back up to their floor. The lights above the door were already counting downwards; he tapped his foot impatiently. “I'm here for...” _Damn, the name was on the tip of his tongue._

The doors slid open and Ratchet started forward, nearly running straight into Rung. They both jumped back and tried to move out of each other’s way, neatly blocking each other’s path again. Ratchet stepped back and waved Rung out.

“I'm here accompanying Rung,” Ratchet said. “I was worried that if someone didn't come along you would all forget he'd left and not pick him back up after his vacation.”

“Well, I certainly didn't clear you for any vacation,” Rodimus sulked. “I am the captain, you know. You should have cleared it with me.”

“I'll take that under advisement,” Ratchet said. “For my next vacation a few million years from now or whatever. If you've got medical woes, call First Aid. I'm off duty.” He hung up.

“Did Rodimus not know we were going?” Rung asked, frowning. He had a bag of convention chotchkies on his arm and a pair of attendee armbands clutched in one hand. “I sent him a memo on the subject the moment I knew we'd be in the area.”

“I always recommend sending memos to Ultra Magnus if you need someone to read them,” Ratchet said. “Did you get us checked in? I was just looking for you.”

“Yes, we're all checked in, I just need a little help getting this on me,” Rung said, holding up the attendee armband and trying to awkwardly wrap it around his own wrist.

“Let me,” Ratchet said, peeling open the glue packet and sealing the ends closed. “What's up first today?” He asked, holding out his wrist for his own armband.

“There's a number of technical lectures, but I don't know if that would interest you...” Rung said hesitantly.

“Hey, I'm here as your friend. You know I'm not super into all this,” he swirled a finger to indicate everything in their general proximity, “stuff. But you are and I'm here to spend time with you. Go to whatever interests you, I'll tag along. If I get bored I'll head up to the hotel room and catch up on my reading.”

“I feel rather guilty putting you out of your way like this,” Rung confessed.

“Don't be,” Ratchet said firmly, putting his hand on the smaller mech's shoulder. “We've been working in the same medical corps for four million years and I've never gotten the chance to get to know you. That's a damn failure on my part as Chief Medical Officer and one I intend to correct this weekend. Hell, I barely knew your name before you got on the Lost Light.”

“Well, I've been very lucky,” Rung said. “No misadventures to land me in your medibay.”

Ratchet snorted. “Do you want to rephrase that sentence?”

Rung smiled ruefully. “Well, _until_ I joined the Lost Light my life had been short on life-threatening misadventures. Maybe this vacation will be a turning point.”

“One can only hope. Primus owes you a good day,” Ratchet said. “Not that I believe in Primus or anything. Come on, lead the way, there’s modeling glue and slag to geek out over.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey, watch it!” Ratchet yelled. He considered going pursuing the gearstick and getting an apology, but Rung came first.

The crowd parted awkwardly around them as he offered Rung a hand up. Rung waved a hand dismissively, even as he probed at his broken glasses with his other hand. Ratchet could see the "It's fine" forming on his lips and cut him off. “Do _not_ apologize for that aft, you hear me?” He said, leading them off to the side of the room.

“He probably didn't see me,” Rung said, finally giving up and taking off the ruined glasses.

“Yeah, because he wasn't looking where he was fucking going,” Ratchet agreed. “Do you have a second pair back at the room?”

Rung winced. “On reflection, I think I forgot to pack it?”

“Not a problem, we'll just have someone swing by and drop it off. I’m sure there’s someone on the Lost Light who’s willing to do us a favor.”

 

* * *

 

Ratchet tapped his foot. Nothing. Nothing, followed by nothing, followed by more nothing.

It wasn't that he expected great communication out of the Lost Light crew, but at least Mainframe could usually be relied upon to answer the comms. And _Ultra Magnus_ not answering his personal hailing frequency?

“Nothing?” Rung asked.

“Nothing,” Ratchet confirmed. “What about you, did anybody pick up?”

“Nothing,” Rung said mournfully. “But what's stranger is that I checked with local nav and comm and they say there aren't any ships in their managed system that match the description of the Lost Light. They agree that there _was_ a ship that matched that description sometime last night and they don't have a record of them departing the regulated space but....no ship matches that description now.”

“Well, it's probably nothing to worry about,” Ratchet said slowly. “Give me the glasses, I can temporarily glue the pieces in place with the equipment I've got on the shuttle. Then we can go back to window shopping.”

“It's not shopping,” Rung protested. “Nobody is _selling_ their miniatures in the showcase exhibition—”

 

* * *

 

Still no call from the Lost Light. Ratchet was getting antsy. Rung seemed immune to the jitters; he’d thrown himself back into meandering through crowds and ogling tiny spaceships, unaffected. Ratchet didn't feel like he was any closer to understanding the appeal. At least the crowd at this table was a lot thinner. He was sick of people bumping into him.

Rung leaned over one of the pieces on the table and frowned. “Is this your work?” he asked the booth-minder.

He grinned and shook his head, pointing to the little trifold on the table that said _Monico Smalls is currently away on important business, will return for the judging tomorrow._ “I’m just paid to watch the table,” he said firmly. “I don't know anything about how he makes em, don't ask me.”

“May I?” Rung asked, holding up his little folding hand lens.

The booth-minder made a gesture that was either "be my guest" or "I don't give a damn". Rung squinted into his hand lens and then frowned. He stepped down onto one knee to get a closer look.

“So are people avoiding this booth because he's not here, or...” Ratchet asked, trying to make a little light conversation.

The booth guy winced. “Is it that obvious?”

Ratchet pointed back over his shoulder. “Just saw a person change aisles to walk through that crowd rather than walk past this part of the exhibition hall.” He was hopeful this might be a sign of interpersonal hobbyist drama. Ratchet had a real soft spot for hobbyist drama. Once he'd gotten Swerve to explain to him the five-fold schism in the metallurgist's professional union. That one had been juicy.

“Well, my understanding is that Smalls—”

“Is that his real name?” Ratchet had to ask.

The guy snorted. “He changed his name to Smalls. Which should tell you how seriously he takes all this. So, yeah, my understanding is there was a bit of a falling out with the United Miniatures League last year, one that _might_ have involved accusations that the winner of the last three competitions bought first place.”

“Pretty pedestrian, really,” Ratchet said. That was disappointing.

“More ironic—Smalls contributes half the operating expenses for the conference every year, he's a big-time real estate magnate or something when he's not fiddling with toys. I don't really understand how they _could_ give him the prize, given that, ya know? It'd seem like he bribed them.”

“You don’t seem like a big fan,” Ratchet observed.

“Apparently none of these nerds were willing to get over how much they hate him for two thousand credits a day. I haven't played with toys since I was a spoutlet and I like easy money. He offered me the gig this morning on his way out to pick up his “exhibition showpiece”.”

“Ratchet, I need to talk to you,” Rung said, climbing to his feet.

“Okay?” Ratchet said, a little disappointed. He gave the booth-minder a wave as Rung hustled him away from the stall. Away from the stall and then away from the exhibition hall and then all the way to the shuttle bay where they were parked, where Rung proceeded to lead him inside and then lock the door.

“Those ships weren't right,” he said seriously.

“Um, okay?” Ratchet put his hand on his hip and considered his friend. “Are you alright? You're acting a bit...Red Alert-y.”

“Ratchet, please be more respectful of my patients. And I'm being sensibly cautious. Those weren't miniatures.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you remember how you told me about Ultra Magnus's scraplet infestation? Which you cured by sending—”

“Several crew members shrunk small enough to fight the infestation because it wasn't responding to traditional treatments, yeah. Wait, are you saying you think—”

“Those miniatures had _people_ in them, Ratchet. Living people.”

Ratchet considered it. Now, rigging up some very tiny holograms to simulate crewmembers for some model ships wouldn't be impossible. A damned waste of effort, but not impossible. But, like Rung said, they knew miniaturization technology existed. And presumably there were other more technical clues that had gotten Rung interested in the ships to begin with—details which Ratchet wasn't interested in hearing explained. “Well, that's a theory,” he said slowly. “Let's look for evidence.”

Rung, being a nerd, had been able to identify most of the ships on that table. Ratchet set him to looking up ship disappearances and missing persons reports while Ratchet focused on researching Mr. Smalls himself. And his recent flight plans. The jerk did most of his travel in a luxury space cruiser, which made tracking his dockings and registrations practically drone-work.

When they'd both researched themselves sick, they got back together and compared the data. Sure enough, Rung had identified at least four probable ship disappearances, all small cruisers and shuttles. The dates and locations of those places matched suspiciously well with Mr. Smalls' business travel. Not the sort of evidence you could throw at local law enforcement but it was good enough for Ratchet.

“So, apparently someone takes this hobby way too seriously,” Ratchet said, pouring himself a glass of Engex.

“And we can't hail the Lost Light,” Rung said.

“Right.” Ratchet took a sip, reconsidered his glass and poured a little more in. Then he went to sit beside Rung. “And, by some coincidence, this guy is off in space right now, bringing back some "showpiece" for tomorrow's competition. I'm not a gambling mech but if I were, well...”

Rung met his optics and nodded. “I am going to suggest something that, if we're ever asked, I would prefer if you pretended I did not suggest.”

“I'm listening.”

 

* * *

 

The argument over who should be the one to actually sneak in was brief—it was hard to argue with Rung's assertion that he was exceptionally good at going unnoticed. What he was _not_ good at was picking locks, which is why Ratchet had accompanied him to Smalls' hotel room.

“Do you expect to take much longer?” Rung asked anxiously, looking around the empty hallway like someone was about to pop out and ask what the hell they were doing.

“Just a second,” he promised. His integrated electro-circuitry hook-ups weren't designed for unlocking doors, but he'd realized back in medical school how handy they could be for it. He was a bit rusty though—hadn't practiced much since except for when he'd sprung Pharma from the isolation cell on Delphi.

The door finally slid open and Ratchet waved Rung onwards. Rung gave him a nervous nod before stepping into the dark room and gently closing the door behind him.

Ratchet mosied over to their rendezvous point by the vending machine in the hallway—the closest place he felt like he could loiter inconspicuously.

He hated waiting. He scanned through the prices on everything in the vending machine—absurdly overpriced, each and every one—and then put in the credits to get a box of rust sticks. Rung liked them and Ratchet felt awkward standing there staring at the vending machine without buying anything.

He was a little distracted trying to shake the vending machine to get his dang rust sticks out and nearly missed the elevator opening at the end of the hall. »Rung, you better be done,« he radioed over. »Because Smalls is coming down the hallway now.«

»Now?« Rung asked. »What am I supposed to do about that?«

»Hide?«

»Meet me at the pool,« Rung said.

»Meet you at the what?« Ratchet asked, scooping up his rust sticks and hustling to the staircase entrance. He took the stairs two at a time until he realized what Rung had to mean. Then he took them three at a time, throwing the door out onto the patio open at a run. There were a few people lounging out by the pool, but not many. None of them appeared to have noticed the spindly robot who'd lowered himself over the edge of one of the second floor balconies and was now dangling by one hand, the other arm clutching a datapad to his chest.

»What are you doing?« Ratchet asked, as he tried to look inconspicuous while still speedwalking over to the bit of patio under that balcony.

»He's in the room and there's only one door!« Rung radioed back. »Should I let go?«

»What? No.«

»It's not that far.«

»With your luck, you'd shatter both your legs. Give me a minute.« Ratchet finally got himself in position and glanced around—either he'd successfully looked casual or nobody cared what kind of weirdness he was getting up to. He tucked the box of rust sticks under his chin and held out his arms. »Okay, let go now.«

Rung did. He clapped his hand over his mouth as he fell, as if to stop himself from making a noise of fear. Ratchet caught him easily and set him down on the ground. »And now we go back to our room real casual-like,« he said, putting his arm over Rung's shoulder and passing him the box of rust sticks.

»Good idea.« Rung agreed shakily. »I would like to sit down.«

 

* * *

 

The user manual for the Shrink-A-Lot 3000 was incredibly obtuse, even ignoring the interminably long opening section on places where it was illegal to use the Shrink-A-Lot 3000. “I cannot _believe_ I am reading a user manual for a shrink ray,” Ratchet complained.

“I could read it instead?” Rung suggested from his place on the couch, where he'd collapsed like a noodle after they got back.

“No, you said reading was giving you a headache. Tell me what you saw again.”

“I didn't see much of anything—he's got all the ships out on display down in the hall. No sign of the actual...device. This was the most useful thing I could grab. But he definitely had something in his hands when he came in the door. I don't suppose you got a look at it?”

“I was trying to avoid eye contact.”

“I was as well, but I suspect that it has to be the Lost Light. I think we should go to local law enforcement now, explain what we know and let them handle the situation.”

“That is very trusting of you,” Ratchet commented, skimming back to the index and trying again. It had to be in there _somewhere_. “What if they're incompetent or in his pocket? Or, even if they're competent and believe us, what if they arrest us for breaking and entering? Or worse yet, confiscate the Lost Light as evidence? We inform law enforcement when we're back on the Lost Light and traveling at top speed in the other direction.”

“You are very cynical,” Rung commented.

“I've been told that.” Ratchet hummed and skimmed over the section again. “Got it. The effect is reversible, just need to be—wow, okay.”

“Hmm?”

Ratchet passed the datapad over to him. “The shrink ray uses an enormous amount of energy when it miniaturizes something. All that energy ends up being released as kinetic energy when you un-shrink it.”

“Oh, I see. No un-shrinking on the planet's surface, then,” Rung said. “Not that we could have unshrunk anything in the convention center, we'd have ended up squishing innocent bystanders.”

“So, how are we going to do this?” Ratchet asked. “The hall doesn't open until tomorrow morning; we have all night to plan. How do we get the Lost Light back?”

Rung sighed. “I can't believe this is happening. I don't want to sound self-centered, but I was really looking forward to the amateur's social club meetup tomorrow morning. I packed all my ships.”

Ratchet glanced over at the case of neatly packed model ships, with the Lost Light model balanced neatly on top. “How convincing, exactly, would you say your models are?” Ratchet asked.

 

* * *

  

“So, you're Smalls himself, eh?” Ratchet asked, leaning his elbow on the table. “I guess the name is apt.”

Smalls crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn't really that small, on the alien scale continuum, but Ratchet's chosen role in this tomfoolery was being obnoxious. A personal specialty of his.

“The name was chosen as a signifier of my devotion to the artform,” Smalls rumbled.

“The artform! Well, that's certainly a thing you could call it,” Ratchet said. He looked around and frowned. “Where'd the guy you had yesterday go? He was good company.”

“I do not require assistance today.”

“Aw, that's a shame,” Ratchet said. “But I guess now I can get it straight from the man himself—is it true that the reason your table is all the way over here  because you had to bribe your way out of being formally banned from the conference?”

“How dare—” The little guy actually got up on his table, to Ratchet's delight. He raised all four of his fists, like Ratchet was going to throw down a little pugilism at a toymaking conference. He resisted the urge to laugh.

»Making my approach,« Rung whispered over the radio.

“Sit down, mate, I'm not going to fight you,” Ratchet said.

“No, you're just going to stand there and _slander_ me,” Smalls fumed. “I'll call security and have you thrown out.”

“Go ahead,” Ratchet said. He crossed his arms right back at Smalls and tried to resist the urge to look around for Rung. “I'm just trying to have a conversation, but if you want to take it personal—”

“Take it personally? How am I supposed to take you insulting my _honor_?” Smalls threw up his hands. “I have had enough of you people and your disrespect for me and my creations…wait.” Smalls looked down at the table. “Wait.” He reached down and plucked the Lost Light model from its little pedestal and squinted at it. “This isn't right—you can see the seams!”

Ratchet glanced behind him and saw Rung hurrying away, box of figures clutched in his arms. When he glanced back, Smalls was already drawing a gun.

“You robbed me!” He yelled, shoving his gun in Ratchet's face.

Ratchet was trying to be cautious, mindful of the fact that all those tiny toys on display at the table were full of people, currently acutely vulnerable to being squished. Given that, he grabbed Smalls by the arm and swung him down to the floor. A boot to his wrist got the gun free and Ratchet snatched it up.

“Don't make a fool of yourself,” he said. Then he accidentally shot Smalls in the face.

It wasn't his fault. The gun was tiny and clearly designed for similarly tiny hands—there was no good way to hold it that didn't risk accidentally pulling the trigger. And the safety was off.

But still—hadn't meant to do that.

To Ratchet's pleasant surprise, there wasn't a splatter of viscera on the nice clean hotel floor. In fact, there appeared to be nothing at all...he lifted the gun very carefully and read the label on the side. _Shrink-A-Lot 3000._

»Hey Rung, meet you at the shuttle,« Ratchet said. He made sure the safety was on before he set the gun down. Then he flipped one of his built-in magnifiers out and crouched down, scanning the floor for any tiny figures. Ah, yes, there he was. Ratchet wasn't sure he could pick him up without crushing him, so he grabbed an empty beverage cup off the table and upended it over the eponymous Mr. Smalls. Then he slid the one of the business cards on the table under the bottom of the cup and lifted it off the floor. He flipped it over and peered at the tiny, outraged figure inside.

“Serves you right,” Ratchet said firmly. He set the cup on the table for a second while he dug through his hip compartment for the Shrink-A-Lot's user manual and the datastick they'd put the missing ships’ reports and the rest of their research on. He put the documentation and the gun in one of the empty boxes behind the table and picked up the cup with his other hand. People who'd noticed the disturbance were staring but nobody was moving to arrest him. Good. He walked over to the judges table.

“Hey, hi,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt, but one of your attendees is a bit in his cups, I wanted to hand him over for his safety.” He set the cup down on the table, followed by the box of evidence. The judges blinked at him and Ratchet tipped the cup their way while holding his magnifying glass over it.

“Oh my stars,” one of the judges muttered. “Is that...”

“You'll want to gather up all the models being displayed on his table,” Ratchet continued. “They need to be returned to their proper size by professionals, you'll probably need to call up the authorities. I'd stay and explain more, but I've got a urgent need to avoid talking to idiots and—”

»Ratchet! I need you on the shuttle now!«

“And I have a friend who needs me. Everything I know is on this datastick, there's instructions on un-shrinking folks in the user manual—check page 48B. Sorry, got to run!”

He ignored the cries of confusion and booked it. Luckily it was a nerd convention and there wasn't much of a security presence. He made eye contact with the one security guard who tried to block his way out of the exhibition hall as he barreled towards the door and the guard wisely chose to step aside. After that it was a straight shot down the hall, down the stairs and into the shuttle bay at the base of the hotel.

He popped open his comm panel as he ran. “What is it, Rung?”

Rung's voice on the other line came back a tad on the panicky side. “They're unshrinking!”

“I told you, we can't trigger the unshrinking process until we're safely out of orbit,” Ratchet said. He looked around the shuttle bay and tried to remember where they'd parked. Somewhere...over there. He started off at a run.

“I didn't do anything!” Rung swung the shuttle door open and offered Ratchet a hand up into the shuttle. It was blazingly hot inside and the Lost Light, once small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, was now the size of a medical droid and visibly growing. “It's Brainstorm,” Rung said. “I got him on comms—apparently they tried reversing the shrinkification process from inside the ship and now they can't stop the process.”

“I'm getting us out of here,” Ratchet said, sitting down in the pilot's seat and flicking through the engine start sequence. “How much time do we have till—you know. Certain death?”

“I don't know. It's unshrinking faster now,” Rung reported unhelpfully.

“Great.” Ratchet said. He lifted off and pushed the accelerator as far as it would go—the shuttle shot forwards out of the landing bay and into the night sky. Ratchet brought up the autopilot for their gravitational escape and hopped back out of his chair. He went to step into the cargo bay to investigate, but Rung was sliding through the doorway into the cabin, being pushed by the expanding walls of the Lost Light.

“Are we out of orbit yet?” Rung asked, throwing his arms across the doorway like that would stop the rapidly expanding spaceship.

“Getting there,” Ratchet said. “Autopilot is taking us as fast as it can, so we need to bail _now_.”

“But my models!” Rung said, pointing at his little crate of model ships sitting on the dashboard. “I don't suppose you remembered to bring the Lost Light model back with you?”

“Rung, now is not the time,” Ratchet said. “You can replace them.”

“No.” Rung took off his cracked glasses and lifted his comm. “Brainstorm. I need you to jump the ship. No, I know that. But if you do not jump the ship right now, I swear to Primus that I will be very cross. And also me and Ratchet will be very dead.”

He smiled at Ratchet with a quirk of his mouth. “Bet this isn't what you were expecting when you signed up for babysitting duty.”

Ratchet saw the blast coming a moment before the shockwave hit and dragged Rung down with him, trying to shield as much of the tiny therapist as he could.

 

* * *

 

Ratchet woke up in his own medibay with a raging headache. There was nobody sitting around waiting for him to wake up, so he got off the berth and walked over to his desk to try and decipher First Aid's notes and figure out what was going on. Looked like Rung had been released several days earlier, no major damage, which was weird given the amount of heat warping Ratchet had apparently sustained. Ratchet skimmed through First Aid's derogatory comments on Ratchet's maintenance habits and finally located the "probable prognosis" section. _Pfft_ , bed rest. Like hell.

He reached over and grabbed his phone. “Hey, Rodimus,” he said.

“Ratchet?” Rodimus asked. “What are you doing up? First Aid said you were in a warp-induced coma.”

“Well, I'm still chief medical officer,” though he really did mean to pass over the mantle just as soon as First Aid felt ready. He’d do that soon. “I'm clearing myself. Just wanted to call you up and let you know I'm planning some vacation time for me and Rung.”

“You were just on vacation,” Rodimus said. “And are you sure you're allowed to clear yourself? Isn't that a conflict of interest?”

“I’m a doctor, not a lawyer,” Ratchet said. “And it does not count as vacation if you get shot at. I need a vacation to recover from my vacation.”

He got up and started walking towards Rung’s office, trying to brainstorm vacation destinations that offered the minimal risk of danger, excitement or adventure.  Though until this week he would have put “model ship conference” at the top of that list. Maybe they could just sit in Rung’s office and drink—Ratchet would bet anything that mech had stories.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been much of anywhere lately because I've been writing a lot, but I do check my mentions on tumblr/twitter (I'm notwhelmedyet everywhere I go) and my comments here regularly. I love comments of all kinds so please free to tell me what you thought!


End file.
